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Table Of Contents
Developing Plug-Ins 7
Plug-ins allow you to use Orchestrator to access and control external technologies and applications. Exposing
an external technology in an Orchestrator plug-in allows you to incorporate objects and functions in workflows
that access the objects and functions of that external technology.
Plug-ins allow you to extend the Orchestrator scripting API with scripting types, classes, and methods that
you can use in workflows to perform operations in the plugged-in technology. Plug-ins also allow you to
represent objects from the plugged-in technology in the Orchestrator inventory. Plug-ins publish notification
events from the external system that trigger events in both Orchestrator and in the plugged-in technology.
Each plug-in can provide one or more packages of workflows and actions that you can run on the objects in
the inventory to automate the typical use cases of the integrated product.
The external technologies that you can access by using plug-ins can include virtualization management tools,
email systems, databases, directory services, and remote control interfaces.
Orchestrator provides a set of standard plug-ins to allow you to incorporate such technologies as the VMware
vCenter Server API and email capabilities into workflows. In addition, the Orchestrator open plug-in
architecture allows you to develop plug-ins to access other applications. Orchestrator implements open
standards, to simplify integration with external systems.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“Overview of Plug-Ins,” on page 141
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“Contents and Structure of a Plug-In,” on page 147
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“Create an Orchestrator Plug-In,” on page 151
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“Orchestrator Plug-In API Reference,” on page 216
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“Elements of the vso.xml Plug-In Definition File,” on page 230
Overview of Plug-Ins
Orchestrator plug-ins must include a standard set of parts and must adhere to a standard architecture. These
practices help you to create plug-ins for the widest possible variety of external technologies.
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Exposing an External API to Orchestrator on page 142
You expose an API from an external product to the Orchestrator platform by creating an Orchestrator
plug-in. You can create a plug-in for any technology that exposes an API that you can map into JavaScript
objects that Orchestrator can use.
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Parts of a Plug-In on page 142
Plug-ins are composed of a standard set of parts that expose the objects in the plugged-in technology to
the Orchestrator platform.
VMware, Inc.
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